As I sit here writing this blog post, not thirty feet from me sit not only one, but two parked Rolls Royces. This is curious for fairly obvious reasons. I’m in a nice neighborhood, but not a super-rich one. In my neighborhood in Boston, a far wealthier place, no one has a Rolls. And I seldom see anyone driving one in Boston, though it’s not uncommon to see Bentley Continental GTs, Ferraris, Maseratis, and other super-expensive cars. But the Rolls Royces, if they exist there (and they surely do) are remarkably shy about showing their Spirts of Ecstasy. And here? I’ve never once seen one on the street anywhere in Mexico.

One of the Rolls Royces here, an ’87 Silver Spirit, belongs to my landlord Rafael, and is parked in the courtyard. I pass by it every day. The other one, an early 70’s Silver Cloud II belongs to his friend, Tony, and is parked on the street, where it has sat unbothered for a couple of weeks now. Rafael borrowed it a while ago, because for a spell he had no working cars, and needed something to get around in.

At the time he borrowed his friend’s Roller, Rafael was in possession of approximately five, non-functioning vehicles: the Rolls; a Pontiac Fiero in the workshop that’s in the process of being converted into a Testarossa lookalike; a late 90’s Range Rover, which is his daily driver and most recent casualty to mechanical failure; a Lamborghini Murcielago parked out front, which lacks an engine among other critical parts; and a large, graffiti-covered van/bread truck, also parked on the street. The bread truck looks abandoned, but it’s not.

Tony’s Rolls Royce

Of the bunch, the Rolls is the most interesting, or at least the most storied. When I first rented the place, I noted the Rolls’ presence. It was covered with dust and apparently not working, a sad testimony to bygone better times. As I got to know Rafael, I came to learn the Roller’s colorful history.

He bought it six years ago in Miami and drove it from there to Mexico City. With an EPA-rated 10 MPG highway mileage, I’m sure it was an expensive trip. Gasoline at the time was fetching around $4 USD/gallon. I marveled at the sheer chutzpah of such a trip and asked him if he wasn’t nervous about crossing the border in a Rolls. At the time, sometime in 2010, the northern states of Mexico were a virtual battleground between various drug gangs and other criminals, the police, and the Mexican military. Ciudad Juarez was more dangerous than Baghdad, and large parts of it had been deserted. The border area didn’t seem like an auspicious place to drive through in a Rolls Royce, even if it wasn’t new. But Rafael was undeterred and sailed through with nary a problem. Hearing this only made me feel a little ridiculous remembering my own fears about such a border crossing. In the spring of 2014, a much calmer time, I also crossed the border, only I was in a rusty 1989 Toyota pickup. Ha!

The Spirit of Ecstasy

For a few years, life with the Rolls was automotive bliss. Rafael drove it around Mexico City without incident, either mechanical or otherwise, though he did have a few adventures. One day he was out in the Rolls with one of my predecessors, a Swiss guy who had rented one of his units. As they were driving around one late afternoon, Rafael got lost. I’m not quite sure how this happened as Rafael is a Mexico City native and seems to know all the backroads. But they ended up in some iffy neighborhoods, and the Swiss guy began to get nervous. After all, there are plenty of places in the USA where you probably wouldn’t want to take your Rolls. A questionable barrio in Mexico City? Yeah, I’d be nervous too, especially given the danger of being stopped for long periods in the ever-present traffic. But apparently Rafael laughed off any notion of danger, much to the Swiss guy’s chagrin.

One of the more notorious iffy barrios here is Tepito, just North of the Centro Historico. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been warned by people, especially my ex, “F,” not to go anywhere near Tepito. “They’ll rob you down to your underwear there, and you’ll leave nearly naked. That is if you’re still alive.” Those were the kind of anecdotes F loved regaling me with. As a result, I’ve always steered clear of Tepito.

Well, Tepito is exactly where Rafael and the Swiss guy ended up in the Rolls. At this point, according to Rafael, the Swiss guy was in a state of near-panic. But of course he couldn’t abandon ship, because that would only have been falling out of a very plush frying pan and into the fire. And then a very strange thing happened. People started making way for the Rolls, pushing pedestrians out of the street, saluting Rafael and the Swiss guy, and cheering. Apparently they thought he was one of the BIG bosses, come to check up on his network of pirated DVD sellers or some such errand. And soon Rafael found his bearings, and he and the Swiss guy floated to safety without so much as a scuff to the Rolls.

For years Rafael has driven the Rolls all over the city with nary a problem, something that still amazes this Gringo every time he thinks of it. Sadly, this automotively blessed state of affairs ended about two years ago. The Rolls fell under some kind of mysterious mechanical malaise and stopped working. Rafael was forced back into the relative penury of his Range Rover.

Elegant Decay

As you might imagine, finding a competent Rolls mechanic in Mexico City is even harder than finding some oddball type of Gringo convenience food. And to put it politely, Rafael tends to bargain hard when he buys things, which ruled out taking it to the Rolls Royce dealership in Polanco. So the Rolls then spent months and months and months shuttling between various incompetent mechanics, losing bits and pieces along the way, but never regaining its ability to elegantly glide over the potholed streets of Mexico City. After several mechanics who could not deliver the goods of functionality, it was finally towed back here where it sat for a maybe another year before I rented my unit.

Sad, dust-covered, and dejected is how I came to know Rafael’s Rolls. But little did I know that I was to become a player in the Rolls Royce Resuscitation Project. But that’s a tale for another post. For now, saludos and thanks for stopping by.

I’ve discovered the secret purpose of the various bits of infrastructure in my apartment here in Mexico City: it’s to make me look like a fool. This only dawned on me yesterday, but the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that I’m right. And I’m feeling pretty foolish right about now. Circumstances are making me look bad. Not merely bad, but kind of high-maintenance, whiny bad. If you’re a guy who considers himself pretty handy around the house, this isn’t a good thing.

By infrastructure, I really mean plumbing and electricity. Shockingly, electricity was the first to ambush me. Shortly after moving in, the power went out early one morning. Noting that the electricity was on elsewhere in the building, I went to the breaker box to reset it. It didn’t appear to have been tripped, but I flipped the switch anyway. Nothing happened. I tried a couple of more times, again with the same result. So I broke down and called Rafael, my landlord and explained the situation. He came out in his pajamas, flipped the circuit breaker on and off once, and Lo! There was electricity. I was mortified and apologized while simultaneously re-explaining that I had done the very same thing.

Some months later, after more power failures, and some alarming sizzling sounds coming from the breaker box, we found out what the problem was. The circuit breaker itself had a loose connection inside the box. Once replaced, it has worked fine ever since. Though I was indeed vindicated, the fact of the matter is that impressions of idiocy don’t really wear off that fast. Especially when they keep getting refreshed.

So once the electricity left off tormenting me, the plumbing took over. Take the water supply, for example. In my apartment it stops with alarming regularity. Of course it’s the typical, failure-prone Mexican system, where water slowly flows from the city pipes into a cistern under the patio. From there it’s pumped up to a tinaco on the roof from where it flows leisurely into the pipes via gravity. The whole setup runs on electricity and a set of cantankerous float valves, electrical sensors, and relays, all of which suffer from the same “Transylvanian” maintenance schedule. Which is to say that they are replaced or serviced only after they fail. Of course when there’s no electricity, the whole system runs on borrowed time anyway.

Only a few weeks after my electrical run-in, the water stopped and I called Rafael: “I don’t have any water.”

“Don’t worry; the system is back on. You should have water in 20 minutes,” he replied confidently. I was relieved he was already onto the problem. Twenty minutes later, I tried the faucets. No water. I merely heard a gentle sucking sound. The system was pulling in air as water somewhere below me flowed out. I tried all the faucets. Same result. I waited another five minutes and tried again. Same result again. So I went downstairs to talk to Rafael, who happened to be in his shop.

“It’s working,” he insisted.

“No, it’s not,” I replied. “I just tried it before I came down here. There’s no water.”

“Let me show you,” he said, walking toward the sink in his shop. He turned the valve and to my horror, water flowed out exuberantly.

“Yeah,” I said, “but that’s just water that’s already in the pipes. There’s no water in my apartment.”

“It’s fine,” he insisted. “Go back and check it again.” Meanwhile the water kept flowing out of the faucet. I could feel my embarrassment rising and hoped I wasn’t blushing.

Sure enough, I returned to my apartment and the water flowed almost as if nothing had happened. I felt foolish and could almost hear the pipes quietly snickering to themselves, “foolish gringo, hahaha!” It’s nasty when plumbing makes fun of you, but I figured this was to be my last insult. After all, how many times can this kind of weird, intermittent problem occur? And to me, who normally has such good mechanical Karma?

Ah, if only! Recently, my toilet flush valve started leaking. Intermittently, of course. Again I notified Rafael, who sent up his handyman, Arturo. Since I couldn’t see anything wrong with the valve, I persuaded myself and Arturo that the problem was the flush handle getting stuck against the tank lid. He duly replaced it. That was about six weeks ago. But it turns out that wasn’t the problem. So Arturo came back and looked again, and we both decided it really must be the valve. I felt rather foolish at having misdiagnosed the problem initially, but Arturo was too polite to comment. But he did go buy a valve. Meanwhile, actually installing the valve seems to have fallen by the wayside, and guess what? Now the toilet appeared to have fixed itself. But don’t tell anyone as they still think the valve needs to be replaced, and my plumbing credibility is hanging by a thread.

Oh, and I had an intermittent problem with the hot water too. Like in the middle of a shower, suddenly the hot water would slow to a trickle. Mind you, the cold still worked fine. That was such a weird problem even I couldn’t imagine what was wrong. Later, after my cold shower, I’d check the hot water and it’d be fine again. But now when I told Rafael, he didn’t believe me. “Maybe the hot water doesn’t like you,” he said, chuckling. It took me a week of hot/cold/hot showers to persuade him that I wasn’t imagining this problem. When he finally looked into it, he apologized and said I was right. That particular problem now seems to be fixed.

Then about a month ago, my shower started leaking. Not a lot, but definitely leaking. So, figuring I’d give Rafael all the facts and let him decide what to do, I stuck a bucket under it to measure the flow and then sent Rafael an e-mail: “my shower is leaking about 1.5 liters a day. I personally don’t really care if you fix it or not, but I’m letting you know.” I never heard back from him, figured he didn’t care about a small leak, so I resigned myself to a leaky shower.

Since I don’t particularly like to waste water, I left the bucket under the leak and started to use it to flush the toilet. But the sound of the dripping water began to annoy me, especially as the bucket in the shower stall created an odd sort of resonance, making the sound MUCH louder than anyone might imagine. And then, perhaps fortunately, the shower began to leak in earnest earlier this week. Now it was leaking 3 liters an hour, and even using the captured water to flush the toilet, a lot of it was ending up going down the drain. So this time I messaged Rafael on WhatsApp, and he agreed to send Arturo around on Monday.

So what’s happened since? Yesterday the shower fixed itself, and now it’s not leaking at all.

I am a vampire. I’m sure this is something you never suspected, and of course, I’ve never given you any reason to be suspicious either. Because I’m really good at passing. But I can’t take living a lie any more, and Mexico City has proven surprisingly supportive of my true nature. I’ve decided that it’s time to come out of the casket and live my life openly as the blood-sucking immortal that I really am.

Well, ok, I exaggerate. I’m really only half-vampire. You see, my father is a vampire, while my mother is mortal. So as I’m fond of telling my Mexican friends, I can take the sunlight, but not very much. When I’m out and about in Mexico City, I wear sunblock and a wide-brimmed hat, and I cling to the shadows. In fact, I always cross the street to get to the shadowy side, even if that means I have to cross back again to get to where I’m going. I seldom go out at high noon, and I try to avoid the sun as much as possible. When I go out to exercise, I jog wearing a wide-brimmed hat and dark sunglasses. It’s a bit of an odd sight, but it beats being reduced to a pile of ash on the sidewalk.

There are other challenges, too. This is a very catholic country, and there’s a church seemingly on every other block, festooned with crosses. I’m usually ok if I don’t touch them, but I have to confess they give me heartburn whenever I walk by. People think I’m crossing myself, but I’m really just gagging. It’s better if I’m wearing sunglasses, but being only half-vampire, I can look at them from a distance, though my vampire friends warn me about getting too close.

It’s buried deep underground for a reason

The real problem here is all the crucifixes people wear. And I’m not just referring to the availability of fresh blood. It’s ok when you can see the crucifix and steer clear. But lots of times people wear them under their clothes. And that’s where the trouble starts. Last Thursday I decided to go to the Centro Histórico at rush hour. Bad idea. The metro was mobbed. And wouldn’t you know it? I ended up in a car, pressed up against someone whom I can only assume was wearing a crucifix under his shirt. The burning sensation was excruciating. I kept trying to pull away, but I could only get little breathers before the person pressed up against me again. I nearly fainted. Fortunately I got off the train before things got really ugly, but I’ve still got a nasty burn mark on my left arm. Remind me to just turn into a bat and fly next time.

Crosses and crucifixes aren’t the only problem, at least for a half-vampire. Since I’m not a full vampire, I don’t strictly need to drink the blood of mortals, though it’s refreshing when I do. But I try to keep it to a minimum. Peer pressure from hanging out mostly with humans? Who knows? Mainly I survive on regular human food. When in restaurants ordering meat, that’s when my true nature starts to really show, especially here. In the USA, you can order a rare steak, and no one blinks an eye. Here in Mexico, nearly everyone cooks meat really well done. So I spend a lot of time explaining to waiters that I want my meat rare, just seared, nearly raw. I usually explain this in great detail, in a slightly fanatic tone of voice, saying I’d like the center to be a bit bloody. Then I repeat my order and instructions, with my best vampire smile, revealing just enough fang to show that I really mean it.

Rare! I’m not kidding!

Usually I’m met with incredulous stares. Most waiters simply refuse to believe me. Rare meat! Say it isn’t so! Not possible! Just bring him the usual! But when I send overdone meat back to the kitchen, they start to suspect that maybe there is something more than a little odd about this deathly pale foreigner with his sharp teeth and a taste for something just a little bloody.

Perfectly Cooked!

As for my Mexican friends, they’re totally cool, and make the drawbacks worth it. They’ve seen my fangs, noticed my habits of avoiding the sun, and politely overlook my bloody steaks. Due to my ambiguous accent, many guess that I’m from Eastern Europe anyway. And of course when I talk fondly of Transylvania, you can see the light bulbs going off in their heads. Fortunately, they have all been very accepting. Indeed it’s become something of a running joke with Luis, my new flame. He’s very vampire-positive, and I love that about him.

Where I live is the perfect place for a vampire. Well, except for the lack of a moat and towers, which might draw unwanted attention. The house is pretty old. But more importantly, the maintenance is a little, uh, “Transylvanian.” So the doors creak VERY mysteriously when opened. And when visitors come (never to leave), I have to go downstairs, cross the patio, and open an enormous, old, creaky front door to the street. The last time Luis came to visit, I didn’t hold back. I descended, unlatched the lock, stood invisibly behind the door and let it swing slowly open with a long, drawn-out creak. As he entered, I leapt out of the shadows, grabbed him, and kissed his neck.

He greeted me with laughter and a big smile. He knows I won’t eat him (though I occasionally do nibble) and he’s one of the biggest supporters of my “vampire-ness.” He’s also a big part of the reason I feel I can come out in the open now. Heck, everyone here has been very supportive. Most of my friends know, and they’re all incredibly cool. I could never do this at home; Boston has much less tolerance for the undead or semi-undead. Here? There’s much more of a “live-and-let-live-forever” attitude. As a foreigner in Mexico, you really get an amazing amount of freedom and leeway, no matter how eccentric you are. It’s a perfect place for a half-breed vampire who can survive the light of day.

There’s a war going on here. A battle in the streets. You may not have heard of it. Sadly, it’s been going on for years now, so it’s not really newsworthy any more. Oh, sure, the occasional outrage beyond the normal course of battle may well get a couple of lines on page D-11 of the local papers. I know I’ve read a story or two about a particularly gory dumping of remains here and there. But pretty much the conflict has faded into the background, with everyone resigned to this war as just one of the facts of living in Mexico City. The capitalinos are resilient bunch, if nothing else. And foreigners had better just adapt if they want to live here.

Perhaps more shockingly, this battle isn’t limited to some fringe areas like the infamous Tepito, some random, informally-settled hillside at the edge of town, or in some other marginal neighborhoods. Nope. This battle is being fought in some of the poshest areas of town. Reforma itself, Mexico City’s “Champs d’Elysées,” is the site of near-constant conflict. And skirmishes regularly break out in places like public parks, plazas, the leafy Boulevard Álvaro Obregón, Condesa, and yes, even in Polanco. The tourists complain about it, but the locals just shrug. In fact, most don’t even notice.

But this is not to say that the city is just accepting this state of affairs. No. The government of Mexico City has hired literally thousands of warriors to fight this battle. And the city shows no signs of wearying in its attempt to impose order on the streets. To their credit, they’ve got an impressive force. Thousands and thousands of these agents patrol the streets, armed with traditional, but sturdy weapons. And despite their archaic look, at least to Gringos, these sturdy weapons are more than up to the task of waging the battle, however inefficiently. Moreover the city has heavier equipment that it deploys when the battle grows intense, as well as a number of fixed installations, though not enough, and too small and weak to really control much territory.

Undaunted Warrior

But as the history of this war too clearly shows, it’s a war of attrition, with victory far from a foregone conclusion for either side. Though the city’s warriors are well-equipped for battle, adequately trained, fully backed by the force of law, and willing to fight, the fact of the matter is that they are vastlyoutnumbered by the superior, if lazier, millions on the other side.

Victory! At Least For Now

Fortunately, there’s no shortage of combatants on the dark side who are tiring of the battle and would like to come clean, literally. And interestingly, their fellow combatants haven’t taken any reprisals against these turncoats. Perhaps because the forces of darkness are almost endless? Perhaps because they accept a certain level of attrition? Who knows? But there’s seemingly little to no downside to escaping from a life of grime.

Sadly, the city hasn’t made it easy for the turncoats to come clean. Oh sure, any strong-willed person could easily cross over to the good side, just as some people can simply quite smoking. But for most it’s tough, and recidivism runs high. And maybe that’s just the nature of things, that this battle will rage on eternally. Personally, I’m praying for peace.

I refer, of course, to the battle against litter and trash. Simply put, I seriously doubt there’s a city in North America with a lower ratio of public trash cans to population anywhere. Take the Plaza de Los Insurgentes, crossed by literally millions of people a day. It’s the size of a football field and always full of people. Yet there is not a single public trash can. Not a one. I’ve repeatedly scoured the place, and I can assure you. Elsewhere? On street corners? Nope. In other plazas? Nope. Along busy pedestrian streets? ¡No mames, güey!* Mostly this is a trash-can-free city, though there are a few exceptions.

Midget Soldier, Overwhelmed

Sure, there are a few places with public trash cans, like along Reforma or in parts of the Centro Histórico. But they’re almost laughable, tiny little things, the child soldiers of this particular war, unfit for the battles that await them. Like two office wastebaskets, joined at the hip and hiked up a small pole with a small opening, they are somehow meant to contain the trash of several hundred thousand pedestrians before they overflow. And that’s when the bins themselves aren’t completely missing, leaving only the poles behind, an all-too-common occurrence. Unfortunately there are too many of these “walking wounded” soldiers around town. It’s a disquieting sight.

Wounded Child Soldier

So it’s likely this battle will continue to rage on, with the city’s army of trash sweepers, equipped with their Harry-Potter brooms on one side, and the millions of trash-dropping combatants on the other side. Those of us who simply wish to put trash in its place are stuck in the middle of this combat zone while the battle rages on.

But Where? Where, oh where are these places to drop trash?

For now, the city is winning through sheer perseverance, but tomorrow is another day. As for me? I’m doing my part, but it’s a daily struggle.

There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call… the Twilight Zone.

“Normal” rules don’t apply here. Whatever you think will happen is the least likely outcome. People and places are not what they seem. Mexico is truly part of The Twilight Zone. And indeed, that’s a big part of its charm: sheer unpredictability set to a Mariachi beat, where death has its own special day, and daily life is full of twists, turns, and the least likely thing being what’s going to happen today.

Take gay dating. It’s completely different than in Boston. First of all, it actually happens here, unlike in Boston where it seems to be a near-impossibility, at least if you’re a middle-aged white guy like me. The last time I was single in Boston and made any real effort to date was in the latter half of 2005, when I was a sprightly mid-40-something. Though I was working a full-time job, I had a second full-time job trying to round up dates. I was on Yahoo personals. I trolled Craigslist, I hung out in bars, and I even tried a few other services. No one could fault me for lack of effort. No siree. But it all came to somewhere between naught and very little.

Now, you’ll have to take my word for this since I’m not going to post a photo here, but I’m a decent-looking guy, 6’0” 175#, slim, good skin, few wrinkles and no sags, virtually all of my hair, and you can eat dinner with me without being grossed out by my lack of table manners. I can also more than hold up my end of virtually any conversation, and many folks even think I’m witty. I’m well-read, sympathetic, and I’ll be nice to you even if you’re not nice to me. So I’m not exactly a completely ineligible bachelor. And I had a more-than-decent job, my own house, and a snazzy convertible to take you to the beach in. Oh, but I’m not pretentious either, though I do enjoy a good life. And I’m a fabulous cook, can fix your car, or anything else that might break down around the house.

But all of that counted for shockingly little, and resulted in a handful of dates with guys that had a lot less going for them than I did, to put it politely. Fortunately I met F here in DF in early 2006, and spent the next seven years with him, mostly very happy years. But alas, that ended in August 2013, and I’ve been single since, and mostly OK with that. Though I never really made much effort to date in Boston since then, I did go out with friends to clubs from time to time, and did things where I’d meet new people. (And I made some wonderful friends in the process.)

I also put myself into other places where I might meet another guy (gay pride march, Provincetown in the summer, etc.). But the vibe was overwhelming disinterest. At least from the ones I was interested in. And since I was now ten years older in a town of “younger-for-younger,” “older-for-younger,” “dad-seeks-son,” “no-one-over-40,” etc., I simply gave up on the idea of dating. And various friends of younger vintage (early to mid-40’s) shared similar tales of frustration, confirming my view that this was a Sisyphean task at best, and likely a total waste of time.

But wherever I went in Mexico, I found a much warmer reception from other gay guys. Even the ones who weren’t really “interested” were at least friendly and would chat and maybe even flirt. And plenty were indeed “interested” and would flirt shamelessly or more. And these guys were beyond “ok-looking,” many of them were really quite handsome. Most surprising of all? Most of them are much younger than me, yet virtually all of them seem completely unfazed by the fact that I’m over 50, and on my way to “well over 50.” In fact, it seems to be a positive in their book. Woo hoo! At least I’ve got some choices, right?

So yes, the prospect of finding El Señor “Right” is and remains part of my motivation for coming here. And of course if you haven’t grasped it by now, yes, I have a “thing” for Latino guys. So I could hardly have come to a worse place, right? As I referenced in my post “Oscar Wilde in Mexico City,” I met two eligible bachelors right off the bat, Roberto and Emilio, and suddenly life seemed full of dating promise.

So what happened since? Oh, nothing much really, hahaha. I just got sucked into the Twilight Zone. Buckle up; you’re about to learn more than you ever knew about gay dating in Mexico City, where the rubber meets the road of the unexpected. In subsequent posts I’ll write about a few guys I’ve met, and what happened. But as a kind of spoiler, let’s just say that I don’t yet have a BF (or any particularly obvious prospect), though I’m certainly not lacking for blog material.

By the way, since I have a sort of “mainstream” or at least not mainly gay readership, I’m trying to figure out just how much detail is appropriate for this blog. So if you can answer the poll below, I’d be delighted. By the way, I’m not going to go “full graphic” in any case since my mother reads my blog too.

Saludos y gracias desde la Ciudad de Mexico!

P.S. I have no idea who’s voting for what; your poll results are anonymous.